Hazardous chemicals and waste are frequently placed in 55-gallon cylindrical barrels typically measuring about 22to 231/2 inches in diameter. The hazardous material can be stored in a liquid or solid form. Such drums can easily develop leaks over time. Periodic inspection can locate slow leaks, but catastrophic failure of a drum can occur and result in spillage of a large quantity of hazardous material. Accordingly, these barrels must be kept in a facility that has suitable safety features such as proper venting, fire and explosion protection, leakage protection with a sump built into the floor, and leakage detection.
Because it is preferable to maintain barrels containing hazardous materials upright, metal hazardous material storage facilities are presently constructed with floors that are generally horizontal or flat. This can be a disadvantage as liquid which leaks, either quickly or slowly, from a barrel tends to remain in the vicinity of the barrel. Therefore, to detect such a leak, a sensor must be located at each location where a barrel may be stored within the facility. Use of multiple sensors can be expensive, both to install and maintain.
Accordingly, there is a need for a metal hazardous material storage facility which can store multiple barrels of hazardous material and which allows a sensor to detect leaks from multiple barrels.
There is a further need for a method to easily construct a metal hazardous material storage facility which can store multiple barrels of hazardous material and which allows a sensor to detect leaks from multiple barrels.